Serious games as a learning tool

The human experience, from the discovery and mastery of fire, to the rounding of the wheel, to the mapping of the entire planet, right the way through to landing on the moon and unveiling the James Webb Space Telescope, has been a journey of discovery and learning. Passing on information and skills to the next generations is what has allowed humans to thrive on a planet full of stronger, faster, and more aggressive creatures, but teaching the next generation, both of students coming through the education system, and as graduates when they enter the workforce, isn’t an easy task.

Everyone learns differently, and advances in technology have put screens and quick feedback cycles in front of young eyes, making the classic blackboard and lecture approach somewhat out of touch. The pace of industry is also such that workplace training has suffered, with limited human resources to deliver classic training materials, and incredibly busy work schedules and hybrid working patterns making diary conflicts the norm.

This is where e-learning and serious games can come to the rescue.

Defining a serious game

A serious game, otherwise known as an applied game, is a game designed with a serious purpose in mind as opposed to pure entertainment. A serious game can be applied effectively in various circumstances, from education and training, to health and wellbeing, to raising awareness and creating engagement around pertinent issues.

Just because serious games have serious purposes in mind doesn’t mean that they can’t be somewhat entertaining. Ultimately, being an entertaining game is a big factor that makes serious games a compelling learning tool when applied to an educational context.

How serious games can help students learn

Serious games as we understand them have been used as a learning tool since at least the 1970s when the term “serious games” was coined by US researcher Clark Abt. With current classrooms full of digital native students used to touch screens, short feedback cycles, and penchants for playing video games, the application of online serious games to education can be considered an essential learning tool in the modern classroom.

Online serious games for education mimic a lot of what makes video games successful. They tap into psychological levers such as a player’s appetite for challenge and their natural curiosity, and blends these levers with classic game mechanics and an embedded learning objective at the heart of its design. Serious games can relocate the medium of learning to a more familiar environment, such as gameplay, and have the advantage that they can be played on any modern device, be that a computer at school, a tablet at home, or on a smartphone while travelling.

How serious games can be applied to business

In enterprise, serious games have just as much application as in the school and education system. In much the same way a serious game can be customised to teach mathematics or languages, giving students the opportunity to practise, fail and learn, the same mechanisms are just as effective when applied to business functions.

From onboarding, to upskilling, to promoting and developing, serious games can give employees a simulation of scenarios and challenges they may encounter in their job, and gives them a low-stakes setting in which to experiment with different concepts, skills, and strategies.

Facilitate interactive learning

Playing serious games gives learners the opportunity to participate in their education, to learn through interactive experiences, as opposed to being dictated to. From a teaching and training perspective, creating and customising online serious games around targeted subject matter gives you an innovative learning tool through which to engage your students and teams.

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